by Zane Grey
XX. WILLOW SPRINGS
Two days' travel from the river, along the saw-toothed range of EchoCliffs, stood Presbrey's trading-post, a little red-stone square housein a green and pretty valley called Willow Springs.
It was nearing the time of sunset--that gorgeous hour of color in thePainted Desert--when Shefford and his party rode down upon the post.
The scene lacked the wildness characteristic of Kayenta or Red Lake.There were wagons and teams, white men and Indians, burros, sheep,lambs, mustangs saddled and unsaddled, dogs, and chickens. A young,sweet-faced woman stood in the door of the post and she it was who firstsighted the fugitives. Presbrey was weighing bags of wool on a scale,and when she called he lazily turned, as if to wonder at her eagerness.
Then he flung up his head, with its shock of heavy hair, in a start ofsurprise, and his florid face lost its lazy indolence to become wreathedin a huge smile.
"Haven't seen a white person in six months!" was his extraordinarygreeting.
An hour later Shefford, clean-shaven, comfortably clothed once more,found himself a different man; and when he saw Fay in white again, witha new and indefinable light shining through that old, haunting shadow inher eyes, then the world changed and he embraced perfect happiness.
There was a dinner such as Shefford had not seen for many a day, andsuch as Fay had never seen, and that brought to Jane Withersteen's eyesthe dreamy memory of the bountiful feasts which, long years ago, hadbeen her pride. And there was a story told to the curious trader andhis kind wife--a story with its beginning back in those past years, ofriders of the purple sage, of Fay Larkin as a child and then as a wildgirl in Surprise Valley, of the flight down Nonnezoshe Boco an thecanyon, of a great Mormon and a noble Indian.
Presbrey stared with his deep-set eyes and wagged his tousled head andstared again; then with the quick perception of the practical desert manhe said:
"I'm sending teamsters in to Flagstaff to-morrow. Wife and I will goalong with you. We've light wagons. Three days, maybe--or four--andwe'll be there.... Shefford, I'm going to see you marry Fay Larkin!"
Fay and Jane and Lassiter showed strangely against this backgroundof approaching civilization. And Shefford realized more than ever theloneliness and isolation and wildness of so many years for them.
When the women had retired Shefford and the men talked a while. Then JoeLake rose to stretch his big frame.
"Friends, reckon I'm all in," he said. "Good night." In passing he laida heavy hand on Shefford's shoulder. "Well, you got out. I've only aqueer notion how. But SOME ONE besides an Indian and a Mormon guided youout!... Be good to the girl.... Good-by, pard!"
Shefford grasped the big hand and in the emotion of the moment did notcatch the significance of Joe's last words.
Later Shefford stepped outside into the starlight for a few moments'quiet walk and thought before he went to bed. It was a white night. Thecoyotes were yelping. The stars shone steadfast, bright, cold. Nas TaBega stalked out of the shadow of the house and joined Shefford. Theywalked in silence. Shefford's heart was too full for utterance and theIndian seldom spoke at any time. When Shefford was ready to go in Nas TaBega extended his hand.
"Good-by--Bi Nai!" he said, strangely, using English and Navajo in whatShefford supposed to be merely good night. The starlight shone full uponthe dark, inscrutable face of the Indian. Shefford bade him good nightand then watched him stride away in the silver gloom.
But next morning Shefford understood. Nas Ta Bega and Joe Lake weregone. It was a shock to Shefford. Yet what could he have said to either?Joe had shirked saying good-by to him and Fay. And the Indian had goneout of Shefford's life as he had come into it.
What these two men represented in Shefford's uplift was too great forthe present to define, but they and the desert that had developed themhad taught him the meaning of life. He might fail often, since failurewas the lot of his kind, but could he ever fail again in faith in man orGod while he had mind to remember the Indian and the Mormon?
Still, though he placed them on a noble height and loved them well,there would always abide with him a sorrow for the Mormon and asleepless and eternal regret for that Indian on his lonely cedar slopewith the spirits of his vanishing race calling him.
. . . . . . . . . . .
Willow Springs appeared to be a lively place that morning. Presbrey wasgay and his sweet-faced wife was excited. The teamsters were a jolly,whistling lot. And the lean mustangs kicked and bit at one another. Thetrader had brought out two light wagons for the trip, and, after themanner of desert men, desired to start at sunrise.
Far across the Painted Desert towered the San Francisco peaks,black-timbered, blue-canyoned, purple-hazed, with white snow, like theclouds, around their summits.
Jane Withersteen looked at the radiant Fay and lived again in herhappiness. And at last excitement had been communicated to the oldgun-man.
"Shore we're goin' to live with Fay an' John, an' be near Venters an'Bess, an' see the blacks again, Jane.... An' Venters will tell you, ashe did me, how Wrangle run Black Star off his legs!"
All connected with that early start was sweet, sad, hopeful.
And so they rode away from Willow Springs, through the green fields ofalfalfa and cotton wood, down the valley with its smoking hogans andwhistling mustangs and scarlet-blanketed Indians, and out upon the bare,ridgy, colorful desert toward the rosy sunrise.
